


Crumbling Reveries

by shootingstarcipher



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-22 04:10:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7419241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shootingstarcipher/pseuds/shootingstarcipher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Killers aren’t necessarily evil, just as children aren’t necessarily all innocent. After all, morality is relative. This is a lesson Dipper is about to learn as he discovers that, while his passion certainly lies with unravelling potentially life-threatening mysteries, some puzzles - such as his secretive and cryptic new friend, Bill Cipher - just aren’t meant to be solved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Evil Ways

There he was again. Dipper narrowed his eyes, staring at the blond boy at the back of the crowd of naïve tourists his great uncle Stan was leading around his tourist trap. He was always there, always keeping to the back of the group, always in exactly the same clothes with the exact same expression plastered on his face - nothingness; he didn’t seem to feel anything at all. He never smiled and he never spoke. The tour didn’t seem to impress him at all, and yet he’d taken the 10 o’clock tour every morning for the past week and a half.

His clothes were oddly old fashioned yet smart and elegant, and he carried himself with such poise and grace that Dipper questioned whether he was really human. They often shared glances during the tours which sometimes resulted in Mabel frowning at the two of them and asking her brother whether he knew the mysterious boy. His answer was always no but Mabel never seemed convinced. They had once asked Stan whether he thought of the boy’s behaviour as suspicious but had failed to receive an answer they considered adequate, as he only ever mentioned the fact that the more tours he went on, the more he paid. This was a remarkably unsurprising response and neither one of the twins bothered to ask him any more questions after that.

This time, though without breaking his pattern of staying at the back of the group, the boy was making no effort to feign any sort of interest in the tour (normally he at least pretended to be listening to Stan’s descriptions of the exhibits) and instead kept his gaze fixated on Dipper for almost the entire tour. It wasn’t clear whether he wanted to speak to him (which is what Mabel hypothesised) or whether he had automatically considered him to be an enemy and was waiting for a chance to strike out at him (which is what Dipper feared was the case).

“Just go and talk to him,” Mabel suggested, playfully punching her brother in the ribcage. “He obviously likes you,” she giggled, gently pushing him towards the group. Dipper protested, arguing that he had no interest in speaking to the other boy, but Mabel saw through him immediately. “Right, and I guess that’s why you’ve been staring at each other for the last hour,” she smirked, and continued to insist that he joined the group and started a conversation with the stranger.

With a defeated sigh, just as the tour came to a close and the guests roamed free in the gift shop, Dipper reluctantly agreed that he had no need to be nervous around the stranger and so he had no reason not to talk to him. As it happened, there was also no need for him to stress over coming up with a detailed and convoluted plan of exactly how to start and continue a conversation. As soon as he decided to talk to him and begun working on a plan, the boy wandered over to him and initiated a conversation without him having to do anything at all. Mabel slipped away when she noticed, choosing to leave her brother with who would hopefully be the first friend he would make since their arrival in Gravity Falls and stand with Soos instead.

“The name’s Bill Cipher,” the stranger introduced himself, holding out his hand for Dipper to shake. He shook his hand - albeit hesitantly - merely out of politeness and concentrated so much on how unusual it was for someone who couldn’t have been more than a few years older than him to introduce himself in the way that he did, that he almost forgot to give his own name. Of course, he didn’t actually tell Bill his real name, but rather the nickname everyone knew him by.

“That can’t be your real name,” Dipper commented, mentally noting that he’d never heard of anyone having the surname Cipher before. Yet Bill insisted that it was his real name despite Dipper’s obvious disbelief. He raised an eyebrow when Bill chuckled to himself as if he were suddenly remembering his own private joke. However, the expression on his face only made him laugh harder.

Ignoring the slightly insulting laughter, Dipper became lost in his own thoughts as he pondered the possible reasons behind Bill’s abnormal behaviour. Why would anyone go on the same tour of the Mystery Shack every single day? (And he couldn’t help wondering why, based on how obviously fake the exhibits were, anyone would go on even one tour of the Mystery Shack.) If he wanted to speak to him like Mabel had theorised, why not just go over to him at the end of the first tour? There was no reason for him to repeatedly take the tour just so he could talk to him eventually, right? As far as Dipper was concerned, this stranger’s behaviour was just another mystery hidden in Gravity Falls.

“I like it here,” Bill suddenly blurted out, though still managing to retain his calm exterior. “Just in case you were wondering why I come here so often,” he added with a smile. Dipper nodded, somewhat dumbfounded by Bill’s apparent ability to know what he was thinking, but stayed silent. “It’s… interesting,” Bill mused, running a finger along the edge of a jar filled with what the Dipper’s journal had labelled “Eyebats”. “So how come you’re always here, anyway? You never join the tour,” he continued, straightening his back.  
“Grunkle Stan - I mean, my great uncle - owns this place. I’m staying here with my sister, Mabel.” He turned and glanced over at where he thought Mabel was standing, only to find that she and Soos had both completely vanished from the room. In fact, there was nobody else there. Not even Stan was there to shout at him for taking an unauthorised break. The other tourists had all left without either of them noticing. They should have realised several minutes ago that it had suddenly gotten a lot quieter, the only noises coming from the two of them as they spoke to one another, but they were both so caught up in the conversation - as well as their own thoughts - that they failed to realise what was going on around them.

To his surprise, Dipper found that Bill was very easy to talk to in spite of them not actually doing much talking at all. He just felt comfortable around him - more so than he’d expected to - even though his odd behaviour still made him feel slightly suspicious. But getting lost in the conversation had resulted in him losing track of Mabel (along with everybody else in the Mystery Shack) and he realised then that he needed to get back to his sister and their mystery hunting. He hadn’t encountered a new creature from the journal in days and he was beginning to get frustrated with himself. Bill seemed to sense this and quickly excused himself, but not before asking if they could see each other again without having to join a tour (which Mabel found particularly amusing when her brother gave her account of what had happened with the stranger a while later).

He found her upstairs in the attic sat cross-legged on the floor and flipping through the pages of her scrapbook. She turned to face him when she heard the door creak open and snapped the scrapbook shut, immediately jumping to her feet and bounding over to him. “Well? How was it?” she beamed, grabbing her twin’s arm and dragging him further into the room. “Are you going to see him again? What’s his name? Oh, that doesn’t matter. Do you like him?”

“Mabel…” Dipper trailed off, his teeth gritted as he pulled his arm away from her grasp. “He seems really nice, surprisingly.” He didn’t know which question to answer first, or whether he could answer any of them apart from his name. “Bill. His name is Bill Cipher.” His sister didn’t look impressed and simply told him that his name wasn’t important. “And yeah, I guess I kinda like him.” Her face lit up then, a wild grin spreading across her face as her eyes shone. He told her of their plans to meet up the next day but quickly moved the conversation along, not wanting to dwell on his potential new friend too much.

Three hours later, he stumbled upon something he had never intended to find. What he discovered wasn’t especially surprising to him at the time - it was, upon first glance, no different to any of the other enigmas he had come across during his time Gravity Falls - but he was not to know at that point that it was much more important than he gave it credit, that what lay within it held the key to understanding and potentially defeating the most formidable foe he would ever encounter.

A bunker, several feet deep, lay clandestine underground, concealed by the earth and the leaves piled on top of it, deep in the forest and not too far away from the waterfall which the two twins so often spent time near. Wendy and Soos were with them when they came across it, though Dipper was the one who actually made the discovery and also the first to venture down into it. The other three stayed close behind him and Wendy forced herself to hold back, secretly wishing she could rush ahead but restraining herself to allow Dipper to officially discover the bunker himself.

A series of incomprehensible runes - symbols which he recognised from his journal - had been scratched into the stone walls either side of the concrete steps leading down to the entrance of the bunker and continued inside. An enormous golden, one-eyed triangle was etched into the floor and was repeated many, many times in numerous places around the room. It would have been much more difficult to find somewhere that it wasn’t repeated than to find somewhere it was.

They didn’t stay long enough to explore any deeper than the doorway. As much as he wanted to force himself to take at least one step further into the bunker, Dipper couldn’t bring himself to do it. It wasn’t like him to become frozen with fear, but the all-consuming darkness combined with the suffocating stench of death radiating from within the shadows had his heart racing and his muscles tensing. Mabel tried to make light of the situation until she herself reached the doorway as well, at which point she suddenly shut up and her laughter faded to silence. Wendy and Soos did the same and, after peering into the darkness one last time, Dipper turned his back on the bunker, mumbling something about going back to it another time. The others followed after him, though Wendy was reluctant to do so.

It was a while before he felt able to tell anyone about it - even Mabel - but as he stood there on the precipice of darkness that day, just inches away from discovering something far more disturbing than he ever could have predicted, something spoke to him. A voice, calling from within the bunker. He didn’t see who it was and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. It felt familiar, and for a while it drew him in to the point where he almost forgot what he was meant to be doing.

Evil was subjective, it reminded him. As was good. The definitions of the two differed from person to person, perspective to perspective. It told him to remember that, just because everyone else said that something was evil, it was up to him to decide whether he agreed with them. The true meaning behind the voice’s words was unclear to him at the time, and he couldn’t even deduce whether it had really happened or not. That being said, he felt so drawn to the voice and the information it had given him that he didn’t really think too much about not believing in it.


	2. Magical

One of the low points about sharing a room with Mabel was the fact that, due to her copious amounts of energy and adrenaline, she often woke up ridiculously early and when she did, she wasn’t exactly quiet about it - especially if she was bored and wanted someone to share her boredom with. It was just before six o’clock when her eyes flew open the morning after her brother had first encountered Bill Cipher, and her first thought regarded his intention to meet up with who she was considering her brother’s new friend that day. Her excitement was uncontainable. Unfortunately, Dipper was still sleeping soundly and her best judgement told her that the same would apply to Stan.

After lying awake in bed for a few seconds - which is as long as she could handle lying still - she threw herself out of bed and started looking around for something to do, something that would take her mind off her impatience. Scrapbooking didn’t help and, rather unsurprisingly, neither did half-heartedly attempting to solve her twin’s scrambled up Rubik’s cube. Unlike her brother, she never had been one for puzzles. But she had always been prided herself on her ability to constantly find something to be entertained with, so she wasn’t ready to give up just yet. Besides, if all else failed, she could always wake Dipper up and pester him instead of being bored alone.

And fifteen minutes later, after realising that there was nothing good to watch on TV at ten minutes past six in the morning, that’s exactly what she did. First she grabbed her brother’s shoulder lightly and gently shook him in attempt to wake him. It worked, but not entirely. He opened one eye languidly, saw her looming over him and immediately closed it again, pretending he was still asleep. When she shook him harder he mumbled a muffled “no” into his pillow and rolled away from her, burying his face into the duvet.

In the end, he gave in and decided to get up solely for the reason that she was being so loud he was afraid she’d wake up Grunkle Stan, and if that was the case they’d both be in trouble - him probably more so than her, simply because Stan didn’t seem to like him very much regardless of the fact that he hadn’t done anything wrong and in any case, he considered himself the least annoying twin.

The very first words Mabel said to him that didn’t have anything to do with how bored she was or how much he needed to get up were, to Dipper’s surprise, about Bill Cipher. “You’re seeing Bill again today, right?” she giggled excitedly, seemingly unaware of her brother’s lack of interest. He had to admit that Bill was intriguing, but not at half past six in the morning. Sleep was more important to him then. But Mabel clearly didn’t realise this and instead rambled on and on about how great it was that he had a friend there in Gravity Falls (since he had only spent time with Wendy’s group of friends up until this point, and they were all several years older than him).

What caught his attention was her sudden mention of her two friends, Candy and Grenda. “All five of us can hang out together, and we can go mystery hunting together - maybe we could even go back to that creepy bunker we found yesterday - and it’s going to be so much fun!”

“Er, Mabel…” he trailed off, pushing himself up into a sitting position. “I’m not sure it’s such a good idea for us all to go mystery hunting together. I mean…” She didn’t let him finish, but what he really trying to tell her was that he wanted to keep it a secret between the two of them, and not let either of her friends or Bill Cipher in on it. Both Wendy and Soos were aware of the strange things going on in the town and both of them had experienced these enigmas alongside the twins, so they weren’t a problem. But the journal had told him not to trust anyone and at that point in time, he only really trusted his sister, and even then, he couldn’t be absolutely certain she wouldn’t tell anyone what was happening.

But being Mabel, his sister jumped to conclusions as she always did. “What? What’s wrong with my friends? You just want to keep it between you and Bill, don’t you?” She seemed annoyed by his alleged desire to cut her out of the mystery hunting, yet still glad that he had someone else he wanted to spend time with. 

She walked out before he could tell her she was wrong, but he managed to catch up to her - in spite of his tiredness - at the top of the stairs and grab hold of her t-shirt to pull her back. She protested and tried to make him let go of her, and she would have fallen down the stairs if it hadn’t been for her brother’s strong grip on her. Once they were both back inside the attic, he explained to her what he’d meant to tell her before she’d walked away from him - that the journal had told him not to trust anyone and he certainly didn’t trust Bill enough to invite him mystery hunting, and that the only person he truly had enough faith in to involve them in uncovering the secrets the town held was Mabel herself.

 

Bill appeared outside the Mystery Shack shortly before the start of the first tour of the day. Due to a fantastic stroke of luck, Dipper was able to slip away from his uncle’s seemingly ubiquitous gaze and let himself out of the shack to meet his new friend, but not before letting his sister know what he was doing. He promised to be back after a few hours - definitely by lunch time - and had every intention of keeping his word.

How was he supposed to know Bill would be so charismatically enigmatic his mere presence would cause him to lose all sense of time?

 

Just his mischievous grin was charming enough to quickly make his feelings of nervousness disappear. Bill liked to listen as he spoke and the quietness tended to lull him into a state of relaxation foreign to him. For over half an hour, the two of them did nothing but wander around the forest slowly and serenely while Dipper talked about his life back in California and how different it was to his life there in Gravity Falls. For the most part, they simply observed and absorbed the scenery around them, mentally noting how tranquil it was. Dipper found himself getting lost in it multiple times, whereas Bill seemed disinterested in the panorama and much more focused on Dipper himself.

He didn’t like being asked questions either, as far as Dipper could gather. When he asked about Bill’s home life - whether he lived in Gravity Falls or was simply there for summer as he was - he suddenly became very secretive and replied that he could only ask one question, and whether that was the one he wanted answering. Instead of mindlessly agreeing, Dipper pondered his friend’s response and kept quiet, deciding to save his one allotted question until he thought he really needed it. It was an odd situation but he thought he ought to make the most of it.

“I want to show you something,” Bill eventually told him, breaking the silence that had been lingering for quite a while. “You can’t tell anyone else about this though. It’s a secret.”

He didn’t wait for a response and suddenly encircled his fingers around Dipper’s wrist, steering him off the path they’d been walking on and leading him further into the forest. Dipper didn’t argue. As they walked, he considered what it was that Bill was so intent on showing him, and contemplated how odd it was for someone he’d only just met a day beforehand to spontaneously announce their desire to share with him something they’d kept a secret from everybody else. It made him reassess Bill’s trustworthiness. Surely if Bill was willing - enthusiastic, even - to share a private secret with him, he should be willing to do the same? 

Maybe.

“Listen, um… Dipper, this thing that I have to show you,” Bill started, pausing when he reached an area of the forest that sent a shiver down Dipper’s spine - a part of the forest he’d happened across before and never wanted to return to. “It might be kind of… hard to understand. You probably won’t believe me.”

Without saying anything, Dipper simply nodded and gave Bill the chance to do or say whatever he had to. He could guess what was going to happen. Bill had already found the bunker he, Mabel, Soos and Wendy had stumbled upon the day before and had no idea he knew about it too. That had to be it. And so he stood back and watched as Bill sauntered over to the nearest tree to his right, reached up for a certain branch and pulled it like a lever, causing the ground to open up and reveal the concrete steps that led to the bunker.

“I’ve been here before,” Dipper finally told him. “I found this yesterday. When did you…?” 

“Is that the one you want answering?” It wasn’t and Bill appeared to already know this, because he didn’t wait for a reply. “Well, have you been inside? It’s magical to say the least.”

It was only when he did step inside - which he had no choice but do because he no longer seemed to be in control of his own body - that it dawned on him that when Bill had told him it was magical, he’d meant it literally.


	3. Chapter 3

The light disappeared, as if mid-morning had suddenly turned to dusk, and then… Spiderwebs. He walked face-first into an enormous spiderweb which spanned across the entire doorway, essentially blocking his entrance. How Bill had managed to get passed it without breaking it was a mystery he’d probably never manage to unravel. He pushed his way through it, glancing nervously at a small yet dangerous-looking red-backed spider that was making its way along the web to him as he waded through the delicate snare.

Once he had succeeded in further entering the nightmarish abode he could inspect the room a lot more closely than he’d been able to before. The runes on the wall were still there - most of them triangular. In spite of the overpowering darkness, the stone floor shone a dazzling silver, almost as if it were made of metal. The same triangular symbols - golden, with an eye in the middle - were etched onto the silvery floor as well. Flickering candles placed around the room lit up the bunker, allowing him to get a better view of everything.

The room they were standing in must have been the only one because there were no other doors leading out of it. At the back of the room, where Bill was standing, was an elegant grand piano and to his right was a dark purple sofa adorned with lacy cushions of the same colour. There was a coffee table in front of it and a fancy-looking bookcase beside it. On his left was a shelf that ran along the entire length of the wall and which was littered with photographs and ornaments.

“Don’t you just love it here?” Bill beamed, inviting him to sit down on the sofa. As he spoke, the door slammed behind them without either of them touching it. “Don’t look so scared,” he laughed when he saw the look on Dipper’s face. “That always happens.”

“B- But the candles,” Dipper stammered as he moved to sit next to his friend. The candles hadn’t been lit when they came in. They’d lit themselves. As if he’d read his mind, Bill reminded him that he had said it was magical. “But I didn’t think you meant actual magic,” he argued, only causing Bill to laugh more. It didn’t feel like malicious laughter like it did sometimes when Mabel and Grunkle Stan made fun of him, but friendly.

It was rare that Bill volunteered information about himself, so there was no wonder he was surprised to hear him ask if he wanted to know how he found out about the bunker. Hoping that since he was offering to tell him it didn’t count as the one question he could ask, Dipper nodded and eagerly awaited his response, watching the candle closest to him anxiously as he listened.

“This place is like my home,” he replied, his already small smile fading. “I don’t really have any family. I got lost in the woods one day and ever since then, I’ve lived here.” 

His face was expressionless. This wasn’t surprising; Dipper had always known him to be unreadable, but it was such a sad subject that anyone would be expected to wipe away a tear or two while they spoke about it. He did nothing. He didn’t cry, his voice didn’t falter, and he didn’t even look away to hide anything. It seemed as if he didn’t care.

Sensing his suspicions, Bill hastily changed the subject. “What do you think those triangles mean? On the wall and on the floor,” he added. “They’re everywhere.” Dipper shrugged and said nothing, but kept his eyes fixed on his friend for reasons neither of them fathom.

“Hey, Dipper,” Bill said after a moment. “You know how I said this place was magical?” Dipper nodded wistfully, not really paying attention to what he was saying. He was much more interested in studying his face - his pale, flawless skin and oddly-coloured iris (only one eye was ever on show, the other being obscured by a triangular eyepatch). “You’re spacing out again,” his friend bluntly pointed out, snapping him out of his trance before continuing. “Are you hungry?” Dipper wasn’t but he said he was all the same - eager to find out what that had to do with the bunker being connected to magic - and Bill clicked his fingers, causing a plate of pancakes to manifest on the coffee table in front of them.

“They’re all yours,” Bill assured him, nudging the plate towards him and grinning with delight. He sat in silence and watched as Dipper ate, but his smile disappeared when his friend stopped eating abruptly.

If he was hungry, it was probably lunch time. And he’d promised Mabel he wouldn’t be long. He’d promised her he’d be back by now. Rushing to his feet, he announced to Bill that he had to leave - even though he would have much preferred to stay there with him - and ran out into the woods, heading towards the Mystery Shack. Bill chased after him and, once he’d caught up with him, promised he’d come back to see him again soon. Dipper ran off again with a grin carved into his face, unable to stop himself from smiling despite feeling ashamed for breaking his promise to his sister.

As it turned out, Mabel had barely noticed his tardiness. And even if she had, she was far too busy playing with Candy and Grenda to care, so Dipper felt as though he’d been let off the hook. Unfortunately for him, however, Grunkle Stan was not so forgiving. He was less than happy about his nephew’s disappearance, caught him trying to sneak up to the attic when he came in and grabbed him by the arm, demanding to know where he’d been. Dipper wasn’t one for lying, so he told the truth and said he’d been out with a friend. But his shaky voice betrayed him and Stan got the wrong idea entirely.

“Oh, I see,” he grinned wildly. “A friend? A girlfriend?”

Dipper shook his head hastily and frowned at him. “No! It’s not like that! And anyway,” he added. “Bill’s not a girl.”

“A boyfriend then,” Stan said only to be interrupted halfway through by Mabel and her two friends’ incessant giggling. Shaking his head again, Dipper turned away and trudged upstairs to the attic, secretly glad that his uncle had said no more about him disappearing from the Mystery Shack when he was meant to be working.

What was irritating was his confusion. His conflicting emotions were even more annoying than Stan’s suggestion of his sexuality or Mabel and her friends’ giggling. He used to be certain he was in love with Wendy, though he also knew she was too old for him - or at least that she’d say that. Now he found himself thinking less about her and more about Bill Cipher, in spite of being certain up until then that he had no interest in those of the same gender as him. He was sure he was going mad. That’s what the conflict inside his head was driving him to: insanity.

He fell asleep with a mystery novel across his chest, open at the page he’d been reading most recently. Reading was one of the few things he could count on not to change. Mabel was another. And finally, sleep. Well, that’s what he thought when he went to sleep. It changed when even his dreams descended into anarchy and he was quite convinced of his madness.


End file.
